28/09/2025
Editorial in September SAOIRSE
Saving the ‘Triple Lock’ and neutrality
FROM the setting up of the Free State following the Treaty of Surrender and the ending of the Civil War one of the few positive policies it pursued was neutrality in foreign wars. During World War II the Irish Free State remained neutral, a position that infuriated British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and US President Theodore Roosevelt.
The United Nations was born out of the ashes of World War II. The Free State joined in 1955 and began deploying troops on UN peace-keeping missions in 1958. The Defence (Amendment) Act 1960 set out that the 26 Counties would only deploy troops on overseas missions that had a UN mandate.
Considering our colonial past, and present with the ongoing British occupation of the Six Counties, the 26-County State has a very different history to its European neighbours. It has never been involved in imperialist foreign wars, nor has it invaded or occupied another country.
Like the UN, the EU is also a post-World War II institution with the 26-County state joining in 1973. Since then, the EU has evolved from a political and economic union to a fully-fledged military union, comprising of military structures and a border force, operating in lockstep with NATO. In the words of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, the EU and NATO are “one union, one alliance, united in purpose” and the EU’s White Paper on Defence Readiness 2030 describes EU-NATO cooperation as “an indispensable pillar for the development of the EU’s security and defence dimension”.
In January 2025 it was reported that the EU was growing impatient with Irish neutrality. This is a matter for the Irish people, who rejected the notion of joining EU military structures when the matter arose in the context of the Nice and Lisbon treaties.
In June 2001, the Nice Treaty was rejected because of concerns that it would drag the Free State into a EU army. A year later the European Council met in Seville and a Fianna Fáil adminstration made a National Declaration reframing the Defence Amendment Act 1960 as a “Triple Lock”.
The Triple Lock set out that, in order to deploy Free State troops overseas, the mission would need approval from both the cabinet and Leinster House, as well as a UN mandate. The government promised that “in the event of Ireland’s ratification of the Treaty of Nice, this Declaration will be associated with Ireland’s (sic) instrument of ratification” and in October 2002, the electorate voted in favour of Nice II.
In 2008, the electorate rejected the Lisbon Treaty for the same reason and another Fianna Fáil government reiterated the same commitment. On that basis the electorate approved Lisbon II.
The Dublin government now seeks to repeal legislation put in place on foot of legal and political commitments to the people, made in the context of two referenda. The proposed bill seeks to permit precisely what the electorate voted against, 26-County participation in military structures that would jeopardise neutrality and dilute commitment to international law.
The Dublin government has embraced the EU and NATO to the extent that it can, under the state’s current legal framework, without the Triple Lock acting as a safeguard to keep Ireland out of illegal wars. Under the Defence Amendment Act 2006 troops may be sent overseas without engaging the Triple Lock in certain circumstances, including for the purposes of “conducting or participating in training”. Because of this, Free State troops regularly participate in EU and NATO-led training exercises, the most recent of which was a German-led EU Battlegroup exercise in Hungary in March and April, which involved 139 Free State troops.
Free State troops also participated in the EU’s Training Mission in Mali, which trained 20,000 Malian troops over an 11 year period in what the EU described as “a job well done”. During the EU’s stint in Mali however, the armed forces carried out two military coups and perpetrated serious human rights violations against civilians.
In respect of NATO, the 26 Counties has embraced the alliance through its so-called “Partnership for Peace” since 1999 and in 2024 joined a NATO Individually Tailored Partnership Programme (ITPP), which allows for “greater information and intelligence sharing in areas such as peacekeeping, maritime security and tackling cyber and hybrid threats”.
There are other forms of collaboration too between the 26 Counties, NATO, the US and EU that make a mockery of neutrality. The use of Shannon Airport by the US military, as it, together with Israel and the EU-NATO alliance, perpetrate a genocidal war on Palestine, is perhaps the most egregious example of Ireland’s contravention of international law, notably the Genocide Convention 1951 and the Hague V Convention on Neutrality 1907.
Government politicians argue that the triple lock gives Russia, China, the US, or any veto-wielding UN Security Council member control over defence policy and say it hampers EU cooperation and rapid response to crises (e.g., humanitarian or peacekeeping operations blocked because of great-power rivalries). They have been constantly pushing these arguments although opinion poll after poll in the 26 Counties show that there is a large majority against dropping it. Dropping the Triple Lock is a first step towards softening up the people with a view to becoming a member of NATO.
The Dublin government argues that the Free State could join EU “battlegroups” or crisis-response operations more easily without needing a UN mandate and deepen integration with the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). Joining a collective defence alliance (e.g., NATO) would provide a formal deterrent against external attack or regional instability.
As a central part of Free State post war diplomatic policy neutrality was seen as giving them a role as an “honest broker” in conflict resolution. Membership of NATO or a military alliance can oblige the Free State to participate in military operations that are unpopular at home and elsewhere.
It could lead to foreign military bases or transit through the 26 Counties, although Dublin has had no problem in allowing US troops to transit through Shannon Airport for many years, including rendition flights during the Afghanistan/Iraq and other colonial wars and now allowing US flights to transit through Shannon Airport which carry munitions to Israel to allow them to continue their genocide in Palestine.
We live in very dangerous times. The war in Ukraine, the genocide in Gaza, Israel’s attacks on Middle East countries, Iran, Lebanon, Syria and now Qatar, with the tacit support of the USA, not to mention many other conflicts in Africa and elsewhere, means that coming generations of young people could be sent to fight in foreign wars, to kill and be killed, to return home traumatised, maimed or in body-bags.
By abandoning neutrality and joining forces with the EU-NATO alliance, the 26-County State will expose itself to attack like never before.
Against the backdrop of an increasingly militarised, NATO-ised and undemocratic EU, controlled by war mongers and profiteers, Irish neutrality can no longer be tolerated, and must be brought into line. The Ditch reported in April 2025 that internal Irish Defence and Security Association (IDSA), which counts among its members arms giants including Lockheed Martin, Hensoldt and Indra, documents revealed “plans to target politicians, influence policymakers and place articles in the media – despite acknowledging the Irish public is not interested in greater spending on arms”.
There is direct US government pressure and overt interference in internal affairs, to coerce the Dublin government to act in the interests of the US empire. The most recent statements coming from Washington regarding the Occupied Territories Bill exemplify this trend. This raises serious questions about the extent to which the Free State (already greatly diminished by the loss of sovereignty that came with membership of the EU) is a sovereign state or whether in fact it may be better described as a vassal state operating under the thumb of the US empire and run by comprador politicians who serve US interests rather than those of their constituents.
In a nutshell, democratic governance structures and participatory politics have been hollowed out. Advanced capitalism has taken hold with a shameless race to the bottom encompassing profiteering by any and all means possible, including from war and genocide.
(See article by Niamh Ní Bhriain at:
rundale.org/2025/07/31/dismantling-the-triple-lock-will-put-people-in-harms-w/.)
Twice in the last 20 years the people of the 26-County State rejected attempts to involve it in a EU army or military enterprise. As the Dublin government comes under pressure from the EU and the US, they are trying to remove the safeguard which was agreed following the enactment of the Nice and Lisbon Treaties.
Organisations like the Peace and Neutrality Association (PANA), AFRI and others have been active in campaigning against the dropping of the Triple Lock and warning that the ultimate aim is to drop neutrality completely.
Sinn Féin Poblachtach calls on the Irish people to reject this attempt by a docile state, anxious to be seen as part of the big powers of the EU and the US. Another example of the failure of the partition governments in Ireland, statelets in the Occupied Six Counties, compliant with British rule and in the 26 Counties with the EU, NATO and the US.
The future for the Irish people is for the Irish people to come together as a whole and decide the future of the country. Sinn Féin Poblachtach’s policy, Éire Nua, a new Ireland would provide a blueprint for a new Ireland free from outside interference.
CRÍOCH/ENDS
